Category Archives: Gawker Media Structure

It is only after thoroughly analyzing the part that any conclusions about Jezebel can be drawn. It is clear that Nick Denton’s vision for Gawker media run’s through Jezebel’s core. It is a magazine that knows its audience, and knows how to attract them. It does this through selective content, which parallels and aggregates other popular forms. It is part celebrity blog, part fashion blog, part feminist blog, and draws upon the appealing and crucial elements of all of them. It also draws upon a rich history of women’s media, which blossomed creatively in an era of oppression. Jezebel is a new form of women’s media; in a new media for a savvier, and more well educated audience then some other forms of women’s media. This helps account for its differences, but acknowledges its similarities. Jezebel defines itself by its critical voice, an inheritance from its older brother, Gawker.com. Even though Jezebel is “for women,” it has many similarities to Gawker. Throughout the blog, examples from Gawker that made pieces of Jezebel more salient, such as the idea of timeliness and Gawker’s transparency about its use of videos to draw attention. Jezebel is framed by the taboo-ness of its name, which projects the type of image they want to craft.

While the issue of Jezebel’s feminism is inconclusive, it is undeniable the feminist strains it has. This is especially evident in its coverage of both personal stories and political/social narratives. However, it draws a closer comparison to other forms of digital media with its fashion and celebrity coverage. The cute videos are an Internet staple, and as the science shows, are guaranteed to draw interest.

Jezebel is the snarky girl in the friend group who eggs others on from the back corner. She knows when to calm down enough to be liked, and occasionally causes a stir. After all Jezebel has been the part of national news and critiques, such as with the Redbook corner. But for the most part she just cleverly spars, talking over the television so that her commentary becomes a part of what the reader/watcher sees.

After breaking down the pieces of Jezebel, it is still hard to draw full conclusions about how it is a women’s blog. One of the unclear pieces is if Jezebel fits inside the category of a feminist blog. There are many undeniable parallels in goals and content. However, where Jezebel falls short is it full commitment to political activism. In her piece analyzing Feministing, Moswel discusses the activism built into the site. (2008) However, in Jezebel, the topics are too varied to really stir activism, but err more on the side of social critique. Jezebel writers are the armchair anthropologists of the digital age, sitting on chairs and jotting down notes on what they observe and hypothesize. To truly be feminist, Jezebel would need to push beyond just observance to ask readers how they are going to take action against what has been elucidated by the writers of Jezebel. In a similar way, Jezebel tries so hard to critique the magazine industry in their manifesto. Yet, with Nick Denton’s goals of creating the pixilated Conde Nast, they cannot help but fall into many of the same patterns. The rhetoric penned by inaugural editor Anna North has cooled. In an interview with Madame Nior, popular current (and newer) writer Dodai Stewart reacts strangely, and almost in a coached fashion to this very question about magazine disapproval.

“Jezebel is not anti-magazine, we are anti-cover lies, anti-unrealistic Photoshop and anti-exclusionary content — whether it be targeting only white people, only thin people or only rich people. Personally, I love print…. But many mainstream ladymags are disappointing.”

But for as much of a fight that Jezebel puts against mainstream magazines, its content falls into many of the same patterns. There is the celebrity gossip, the analysis of who wore what, splashed with human-interest pieces. What sets Jezebel apart is its acidic tongue, but even that seems to fall short of really piercing celebrity culture. Of course, Jezebel has made it clear that they do not deal in cruelty, Holmes pointing out in interviews that they never mention weight. (Johnson 2007) Really, in these areas they are treading into worn territory. Perhaps this is because their manifesto and begging was so focused on the fashion piece, that they forgot to really establish their goals for the rest, and fell fumbling into patterns of puppies and dresses.

However, this so far may be selling Jezebel short. One area they excel in is their attention to women’s issue. They have exhaustive coverage of LGBT issues, sexual health, reproductive rights and more. However, none of this coverage comes with the real impetuous towards change, only the passive resignation.

The role of advertisers plays an important role in the format of Jezebel’s page. The organization of Jezebel reveals important information about the content categories. Denton’s goals to emulate traditional media was reinforced with a redesign of the front page of Jezebel,and the other Gawker Media holdings to look more like the front page of a magazine or tabloid (Denton 2010). In an article published on Gawker’s life advice/organization blog Lifehacker, Denton explained how the different changes are a result of media convergence, blurring the lines between digital communications and traditional media (2010). The format allows the editors to differentiate, and highlight certain articles or categories as more important or popular (Denton 2010). In fact, much of the redesign was based on the intrinsically linked process of drawing viewers and advertisers (Denton 2010). This reflects further Jezebel as a profitable media enterprise, which could have an unknown effect on the content present and could effect how the material may be edited to cater to drawing in the most advertisers. However, this cannot be proven without thorough content analysis at the scale this blog cannot complete.

Specifically for Jezebel, each article is tagged with a different label, which indicates the content of the article. Underneath the highlighted article on the main page there are headlines for other articles divided by some of the more popular labels. Along the side of the page is a traditional blog view, which shows the label and article title. Some of the labels are features such as “Dirt Bag” and “Rag Trade” which are published regularly, while others are adjusted to more current issues such as “Pill Baby Pill” which covers issues with the current debate about birth control.

The blog defines itself as describing “Celebrity, Sex and Fashion for women.” These three categories loosely divide most of the content on Jezebel. The “celebrity” indicates content that focuses on gossip and celebrity news, including a feature called “Dirt Bag” which lists celebrity gossip, and “Snap Judgment” which shows pictures of celebrities, and asks commentators their opinions. One common celebrity article is “midweek madness,” which analyzes the celebrity tabloid magazine covers for the week, playfully mocking the focus on celebrity pregnancy (Mascia 2010). The “sex” content focuses on issues related to women, including women’s health news, personal relationship and motherhood anecdotes, accomplishments by women in news and similar content. The “fashion” category harkens back to Jezebel’s proclaimed roots as an alternate to traditional women’s magazines, (Holmes 2007) and takes up a smaller portion then the other two categories. There are segments such as “Rag Trade,” which outline news about designers and the fashion world, snf “Photoshop of Horrors”, which shows egregious use of Photoshop in advertising, as well as reviews of fashion shows (Mascia 2010). However, as a member of Gawker empire, the payment of the writers is driven by page views (Grigoriadis 2007). This leads to a de facto fourth category, composed of labels such as “squee” and “aww” which, as their titles suggest include videos of cute children, adorable animals and other videos which are going viral from websites like YouTube and Vimeo. These videos are what Denton describes as “palette cleansers” – softer pieces to dilute the snark that may driver advertisers away. (Denton 2010) All of this content is compiled to form what Jezebel views as what women want to hear about.

Before breaking down the significance of Jezebel, it would be helpful to explain the history and set-up of the site. Jezebel was founded in May 2007 as a purely female directed blog associated with Gawker.com, the popular online news/culture blog. (PR Week) The website has 2.1 million monthly readers(Jezebel demographics). Gawker Media was established in 2002 by Nick Denton and currently publishes eight different blogs that each target niche audiences. (Who We Are) The blogs range from Deadspin, which focuses on sports, to i09, which focuses on technology (Who We Are). The different blogs will often link to each other’s content, or have their content featured on the more general main site, Gawker.com. While Gawker at its root is meant to express the experience and ideas of a young New Yorker, the wide range of sites shows broader appeal(Grigoriadis 2007). A glance at the Gawker.com home page reveals that the stories expand far beyond the interest and experience of a New Yorker but still with the biting edge the city is known for.

Dent likes to view Gawker publications not just as a string of blogs but an empire of magazines like Condé Naste (Grigoriadis 2007). Additionally, many of the writers are journalist with credits from mainstream news outlets and formal media training (Grigoriadis 2007). In fact, “Gawker is often credited with legitimizing blogging as journalism” and instead of more lowbrow blog posts, the items on the page are described as articles, which has a more professional connotation(Manjoo 2010).

This growth of Gawker media can be viewed as a result of the “professionalization of blogging.” While blogging was once a more independent medium, professionals from the media are increasingly staffing it, or bloggers are becoming part of other media projects (Carlson 2009). An article in Atlantic Magazine discusses these phenomena, citing a discussion among bloggers where “almost everyone weighing in agreed that blogging has become more corporate, more ossified and increasingly indistinguishable from the mainstream media”(Carlson 2009). With the increasing popularity of blogging it has become a profitable industry, and is therefore increasingly subject to market disciplines” (Carlson 2009). However, due to its occasionally risqué and controversial material, Jezebel is considered “a risky self for mainstream marketers” (Dobrow 2008).

The websites all feature visible advertisements, the first of which was an Absolut Vodka ad in 2003 (Timetoast). All of the Gawker Media holdings are vastly popular, and together reached over 250 million page views in June 2008(Timetoast). In February 2012, Jezebel received 11,274,170 page views (Jezebel Stats). Page views are displayed for the website as a whole, and individually by reach contributor (Jezebel Stats). There is also a detailed report for all of the Gawker media holdings, which breaks down the holdings by demographics. All of the statistics indicate that Jezebel, and Gawker in general have a large number of viewers, cementing their importance in the digital media landscape.

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About this Blog

We all consume various media. But what influences the content presented on the platform? This blog is an ongoing project for a class on Sexuality and Social Media. Each post will discuss an aspect of Jezebel.com, the popular website, targeted to women. For more information, check out the first post!
Check out my twitter: @mollyohgolly